1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for manufacturing a ribbon roll which is made by rolling up an ink ribbon, a magnetic tape, a paper tape or the like, and more particularly to a ribbon roll manufacturing method and apparatus which are capable of, when manufacturing a ribbon roll by conducting an edit process of joining a plurality of ribbon materials and then by rolling up or winding the resultant ribbon around a core, easily accomplishing the edit process for a short time.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, as an ink ribbon for use in recording based upon thermal transfer, there has been employed an ink ribbon roll made by rolling a strip ink ribbon around a core. In addition, as the ink ribbon roll, in place of directly rolling up only a strip ink ribbon on a core, one produced by joining or splicing a splice tape such as a trailer tape and a leader tape to an ink ribbon in accordance with the specification of a printer using the ink ribbon before rolling-up has come into widespread use.
For instance, as shown in FIG. 7, trailer tapes 2, leader tapes 3 and intermediate tapes 4 are adhered to ink ribbons 1 with adhesive tapes 5 (5a to 5d) and the resultant due to the adhesion is cut along a cutting plane line indicated at character A and rolled around a core 6 to produce an ink ribbon roll, which is put to use. In this case, a way of rolling it up is usually taken as follows.
First of all, the trailer tape 2, the ink ribbon 1 and the leader tape 3 are successively rolled up in a state where one end portion of the trailer tape 2 on the core 6 side of the cutting plane line A is fixed through the adhesive tape 5a to the core 6. Secondly, the intermediate tape 4 is peeled off the adhesive tape 5d which in turn, is used to fix the wound leader tape 3. On the other hand, the remaining portion of the intermediate tape 4 cut along the cutting plane line A is peeled off the adhesive tape 5a when the trailer tape 2 succeeding the cutting plane line A is adhered to a different core, and the adhesive tape 5a is used to fix the trailer tape 2 to the different core. Thereafter, as in the case mentioned above, the trailer tape 2, the ink ribbon 1 and the leader tape 3 are successively rolled up around a core. With the repeated same operations, a large number of ribbon rolls are producible.
In this case, the leader tape is employed to join the ink ribbon to a printer when necessary, while the trailer tape is used to allow a sensor within the printer to sense the ribbon end of the ink ribbon mounted on the printer, when needed.
FIG. 8 is an illustration of an arrangement of an apparatus of manufacturing an ink ribbon roll in which the trailer tape and the leader tape are adhered to each other as mentioned above. The apparatus shown in this illustration is composed of a supply (unroll) unit 10, an edit unit 20 and a take-up unit 30.
The supply unit 10 is made up of an ink ribbon supply shaft 11 supporting a rolled ribbon material (a ribbon to be supplied as a material for manufacturing a ribbon roll) and a nip roller 12 for partially drawing out the ink ribbon 1 from the rolled ribbon on the supply shaft 11.
The edit unit 20 conducts an edit process to join a leader tape 3, an intermediate tape 4 and a trailer tape 2 to the ink ribbon 1 unrolled from the supply unit 10.
FIGS. 9A and 9B are illustrations available for a description of the edit process to be conducted in the edit unit 20 of the FIG. 8 apparatus. As shown in FIG. 9A, the edit unit 20 is equipped with cutting blades 21, 22 for cutting of the ink ribbon 1, while vacuum mechanisms 24 are located on stages 23 so that the ink ribbon 1 in the vicinity of cutting plane lines A.sub.21, A.sub.22 along which the ink ribbon 1 is cut by the cutting blades 21, 22 is vacuum-chucked on the stages 23. In addition, in the edit unit 20 there are mounted a rolled leader tape material (a tape to be used as a material for a leader tape in a ribbon roll) 3, a rolled intermediate tape material (a tape to be used as a material for an intermediate tape in a ribbon roll) 4, a rolled trailer tape material (a tape to be used as a material for a trailer tape in a ribbon roll) 2 and rolled adhesive tapes 5 (5a to 5d) which are supplied at the editing operation.
As shown in FIG. 9A, the ink ribbon 1 is conveyed from the supply unit 10 and the conveyance thereof is stopped at the stages 23 so that the ink ribbon 1 is vacuum-chucked by the vacuum mechanisms 24 and cut at two places by the cutting blades 21, 22, thus removing the ink ribbon 1 portion between both the cutting blades 21, 22.
Subsequently, as shown in FIG. 9B, the leader tape 3, the intermediate tape 4, the trailer tape 2 and the adhesive tapes 5 (5a to 5d) are drawn out in directions perpendicular to the conveying direction of the ink ribbon 1 and placed on the ink ribbon 1. Whereupon, the take-up unit side ink ribbon 1, the leader tape 3, the intermediate tape 4, the trailer tape 2 and the supply unit side ink ribbon 1 are adhered to each other through the adhesive tapes 5. Further, the edge sides of the tapes placed thereon are cut to coincide in position with the edge side of the ink ribbon 1. Then, the ink ribbon 1 is released from the vacuumized condition to be conveyed to the take-up unit 30.
The take-up unit 30 includes a cutting section 31 in which a plurality of cutting blades are arranged in its width directions to cut the ink ribbon 1, carrying the leader tape 3, the intermediate tape 4 and the trailer tape 2 thereon, to have a given width. Further, this take-up unit 30 has turrets 32 each for allowing a plurality of cores 6 to be mounted thereon, and each of the turrets 32 is made to be rotatable around a shaft 33 to successively position the cores 6 which roll up the cut ink ribbons 1 with the given width. Accordingly, the ink ribbons are rolled up around the cores 6, thus manufacturing ink ribbon rolls.
Although in FIG. 8 the take-up unit 30 has been illustrated as including two turrets 32, there is no limitation in the number of cores 6 mounted on the turret 32 and the number of turrets 32 set in the take-up unit 30.
Furthermore, when the ink ribbon 1 is wound around the core 6 in the take-up unit 30, the intermediate tape 4 is cut (see the cutting plane line A in FIG. 7) so that the winding operation starts from the trailer tape 2 and ends at the leader tape 3, and of the cut intermediate tape 4, the intermediate tape 4 portion on the trailer tape 2 side is peeled off the adhesive tape 5a, and the trailer tape 2 is adhered to a core through that adhesive tape 5a. Further, when the rolling-up of the ink ribbon 1 comes to an end, the intermediate tape 4 on the leader tape 3 side is also peeled off the adhesive tape 5d which in turn, is used to fix the wound end thereof.
However, the edit process to be done in the abovedescribed prior edit unit 20 relies on manual works including the cutting of the ink ribbon 1, the drawing-out of the leader tape 3, the intermediate tape 4, the trailer tape 2 and the adhesive tapes 5 (5a to 5d), the adhesion of these tapes and the cutting for making all of uniform edge sides of the tapes. These operations need extremely high skill, and therefore, the common workman can not the edit process.
Although a consideration can also be given to automatization of the edit process which has relied on the manual works, the specification required for the ribbon rolls runs into various kinds because the splice tapes necessary are different in type or length from each other among printers. For instance, there is a case that the trailer tape is unnecessary. Accordingly, in order to deal with various specifications necessary for the ribbon rolls, there is a need to change the kind of the splice tape. In addition, the length of the splice tape in the ink ribbon roll corresponds to the width of the rolled splice tape material as found from FIGS. 9A and 9B, and therefore, for changing the length of the splice tape for the connection of the ink ribbon roll, it is necessary to replace the rolled splice tape material with a tape width corresponding to the length of the splice tape in the ink ribbon roll. However, even if merely automatizing the portion of the prior edit process relying upon the manual operations, difficulty is experienced to make the replacement of the rolled splice tape material. Particularly, it is required to change the separation between the cutting blades 21, 22 in accordance with the width of the rolled splice tape material to be put to use, and in the case of automatizing the adjustment of that separation therebetween, the apparatus results in being complicated and large in scale. For this reason, difficulty is encountered to automatize the edit process, and in fact the edit process depends upon the manual operations by the skilled workman under the unavoidable circumstances.
Moreover, even by the skilled workman, while the edit process is done in the edit unit 20, the take-up process for rolling the ink ribbons 1 on the cores 6 is necessary to stop, which makes it difficult to simultaneously conduct the edit process and the take-up process, with the result that it is difficult to improve the productivity on the ribbon rolls.